Sites in Oshawa, Uxbridge, Cobourg and Port Hope under assessment

Abandoned weapons depots in downtown Toronto

From abandoned weapons depots in downtown Toronto to a popular beach near Trenton that was once a bombing range, Ontario is home to more than one in five of Canada’s 800 potentially dangerous sites of unexploded wartime ordnance, a Defence department list provided to the Star reveals.

Ontario — with 10 “confirmed” locations and about 140 other sites “in assessment” — has the largest number of identified locations of any province, according to a national inventory by the Unexploded Explosive Ordnance (UXO) and Legacy Sites Program.

There are 19 designated locations in the GTA, including three former “ordnance depots” on Bay, Spadina and Fort York and a “possible bombing range” near Vaughan.

Almost all of those sites are designated as “suspected” because historical records indicate there may be homes to unexploded ordnance. But there have been no searches at those locations to confirm any risk to the public.

"What we have here is a challenge: bringing people’s knowledge to the point where they can be safe but not scaring them,” said Jon Preston, operations manager of the DND program.

Fears that misinformation could spread has led the DND to retreat from a promise on its website to make “a public database accessible.”

As well, efforts to clean up some Ontario sites have met with opposition from a sometimes skeptical public as well as environmentalists.

Canada’s inventory of unexploded ordnance does not compare in numbers or casualties to Europe, where a much larger population is crammed into a much smaller territory that was the battlefield for two world wars.

The DND says that since 1927, there have been 15 fatalities and 20 injuries in Canada related to wartime weapons and many more injuries. Since 2005 when the department launched its UXO program, it has spent $70 million searching for unexploded ordnance, while the country’s growing population and urban sprawl were reaching long-abandoned storage sites and testing ranges.

“In the past, they were in some pretty remote areas to keep the soldiers and the training away from populated areas,” said Preston, “But time passes (and) there is a greater occurrence of events.”

Between 1944 and 1973, at least nine people were killed near Vernon, B.C., in accidents caused by buried explosives. There has not been a UXO-related death since 1997 in Lethbridge, Alta. The last known injury occurred in 2007 when a farm employee in Manitoba ran over a buried pyrotechnic device.

Preston’s team combs through archives and military records and even chats with old-timers in small towns who remember the war years.

Then they target a number of hot spots to retrieve and remove undetonated bombs and other potentially dangerous weapons.

In some instances, like the ghost town of Winisk in Ontario’s far north, ordnance turn up in unpopulated areas, making cleanup easy.

But residents near Wellers Bay on Lake Ontario, southwest of Trenton, were furious when a longtime favourite strip of boating and beach shoreline was closed to the public in 2011.

During the Second World War, the site had been the target for thousands of bombs dropped by Commonwealth aircrews on training runs.

During sweeps along the shore, DND personnel found hundreds of kilograms of weapons fragments. They warn that “the possible presence of 500-pound bombs” could be still buried underground.

Locals have been using the beach for 60 years without problems, says Daryl Kramp, the Tory MP for Prince Edward-Hastings.

“I am not satisfied they have made the case for extreme risk,” he said, skeptical about reports that up to four unaccounted large bombs may still be buried in the sand.

“They have found fragments the size of a thumbnail but can’t find a bomb the size of a small vehicle?” he said.

The DND is not backing down.

“People who choose to go onto to that beach, there is a risk,” said Preston. “I empathize with them that they have been using that site for years without any accident. But I remember growing up with my parents and not wearing seatbelts and now we realize that is not a good idea.”

In Ostrander Point in Prince Edward County, environmentalists complained contractors hired to look for unexploded ordnance at the former air force site were clearing wide sections of wildlife habitat that is home to migrating birds and endangered species.

“All the protective measures are in place,” insisted Preston. “We are doing everything we can with the environment in mind.”

The only “confirmed” UXO site in Toronto was Solway Metal Sales, a scrapyard near Bloor and Dundas.

Preston was one of the DND experts who helped clear the site in late 2012, where they found 1,107 unexploded devices ranging from mortar bodies to rockets.

Preston said he gave the current owners a letter certifying that “the site has been risk managed down to very low.”

A list of all the sites is posted on the DND website but it is not searchable by keyword or postal code and no addresses or details are available.

Preston says the main danger is not from people stumbling upon unexploded weapons but rather “because people find them and mishandle them and assume they are safe and pick them up.”

“Our core message is: once you find something, stop!” he says. “There is a hazard out there but it’s not going to hurt you if you treat it with respect that it deserves and do not touch it.”

Where they are

With files from Andrew Bailey

Here is the list provided by the Department of National Defense of “confirmed” sites in Ontario with unexploded ordnance and those locations that are “in assessment.”